William Brindise Wins US Poker Championship Main Event
Despite the promise of a televised final table for both its Pot Limit Omaha Championship and Main Event, it was a small crowd at the United States Poker Championships (USPC), with only 32 players entering the Omaha event and 154 taking part in the Main Event.
The tournament series, hosted by the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, ran from November 2nd until shortly before Thanksgiving and featured a total of 24 different events with buy-ins ranging from $340 to $5,250. Prior to the start of the series, the tournament staff announced that cable television channel Spike TV would be on hand to film a couple of the contests.
The first televised event was the $2,625 buy-in Pot Limit Omaha tournament. Although the field was a scant 32 players, it was packed with some big name pros, several of whom made it to the final table. Amnon Filippi, Matthew Matros, Matt Glantz, and Allie Prescott all made the feature table, with Prescott taking home the victory worth $36,000.
The second televised tournament, the USPC Main Event, drew a much larger crowd than the Omaha contest and saw substantial growth over last year’s running. The combined appeal of a televised event plus a smaller buy-in helped to essentially triple the size of the field between 2008 and 2009. Last year, the event featured a buy-in of $10,000 and only drew 52 runners. Some of the 154 players who turned up to play in this year’s tournament included Matt “All In At 420” Stout, UB.com pro Liv Boeree, Allen Kessler, Michael and Nick Binger, Joe “hoodini10” Udine, Adam Junglen, Jeff “yellowsub” Williams, and Thayer Rasmussen.
The final table featured a number of notable names, including the 2001 USPC Champion Men “The Master” Nguyen. Nguyen defeated fellow pro John Juanda heads-up in 2001 to take the $228,000 first place prize. This time around, the tables were turned and it was Nguyen who had to settle for a runner-up finish. Nguyen was joined at the final table by Nick Binger, World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Brian Lemke, and online poker player Eric “avrilsharapova” Ladny.
The chip leader going into the final table was not one of the known pros though, it was William Brindise, a New Jersey local who started the final seven-handed table with more than 1.5 million chips – twice that of his next closest competitor, Nguyen. Ladny rounded out the top three and the trio of players started and ended the day in the exact same positions on the leaderboard. Ladny busted out in third place, setting up a heads-up match between Nguyen and Brindise. It would be the local who prevailed over the professional, as Brindise defeated Nguyen to take down the first place prize worth $261,800; Nguyen earned $138,600 for his runner-up finish.
Although he may be lacking the experience of his formidable heads-up opponent, Brindise is no stranger to poker success. Prior to his win at the USPC, he had nearly $130,000 in tournament winnings to his credit, including a win in a Trump Classic event in 2005, several cashes at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and an in-the-money finish at the 2004 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. With the victory in Atlantic City, Brindise’s career winnings are now close to $400,000.
Here are the results from the final table of the 2009 USPC Main Event:
1st Place: William Brindise – $261,800
2nd Place: Men “the Master” Nguyen – $138,600
3rd Place: Eric Ladny – $77,000
4th Place: Gordon Eng – $53,900
5th Place: Brian Lemke – $46,200
6th Place: Nick Binger – $30,800
7th Place: Anton Smolyanskiy – $23,100
Related Poker Tournaments News:
- Qualify Now for the $50,000 William Hill Online Poker Championship
- The Inaugural William Hill Online Poker Championship is Here
- The Nightly Turbo: PokerStars Sponsors Basketball Team, William Thorson Wins Baltic Festival, and More
- $2,500 Cash Tourneys at William Hill
- Qualification Ends Tonight for $25,000 William Hill Wanted
- William Hill’s $500 Cash Freeroll Series
- $25,000 William Hill Wanted Next Month
- William Hill $2.5k Freeroll Starting Soon
- William Hill’s $2,000 Cash Freeroll - $100K Tickets Also up for Grabs!
- The second William Hill Poker Grand Prix is coming
- Exclusive Freerolls Running at Both William Hill and CD Poker!
- William Hill Poker Grand Prix airs on Sky starting this week
Casino poker language:
- DRAW - [1] A class of poker games characterized by players being dealt 5 cards face-down and later having the opportunity to replace some of the original 5. "Draw poker" and "Five-card draw" are examples of usage. [2] In stud and Hold'em games, the set of cards that will be dealt later can be collectively called "the draw". [3] To discard some number of cards and have dealt an equal number of replacements.
- SHARK - A good/crafty player often posing as a fish early in the game.
- ALL-IN - To have all of one's chips in the pot. A player who is all-in cannot be forced out of the pot by more betting, but is only eligible to win that portion of the pot he has contributed to. Generally, a SIDE POT is created each time a player is all-in.
- WALK - A pot won by the last blind when no one opens.
- CUT - To break the deck into 2 stacks of at least 5 cards each. Usually performed by the player to the dealer's right to insure that the the deck is not stacked.
- POT LIMIT - A game where the maximum bet is determined by the size of the pot at the time. Note that a player wanting to raise first calls the bet, then totals the pot to determine the maximum amount he can raise.
RSS feed
